Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Security roles in SaaS increasingly sit at the intersection of product delivery and customer deployment, and this forward-deployed position reflects that shift. Rather than operating solely as a centralized security function, the work is tied to real-world implementations of OpenAI’s technology for strategic public sector customers, where deployment choices, infrastructure patterns, and operational constraints directly shape risk. The hybrid and travel expectations signal a role grounded in hands-on execution across environments, not just policy.
For a long-term SaaS security career, this kind of embedded remit builds fluency in how security controls survive contact with production. It develops practical judgment across identity, encryption, network boundaries, and monitoring, alongside modern cloud and platform primitives such as Kubernetes and Terraform. The exposure to assessments, validation exercises, and threat-informed operations translates well to security engineering paths in enterprise SaaS, regulated industries, and platform teams responsible for shared infrastructure.
This role tends to suit security engineers who like partnering closely with product and infrastructure groups and who are comfortable being accountable from design through ongoing operations. It also fits professionals who prefer customer-proximate work, can switch between deep technical problem solving and cross-functional coordination, and want their security decisions to be tested in high-stakes deployments.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About the Team
Security is at the foundation of OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Security team protects OpenAI’s technology, people, and products. We are technical in what we build but are operational in how we do our work, and are committed to supporting all products and research at OpenAI. Our Security team tenets include: prioritizing for impact, enabling researchers, preparing for future transformative technologies, and engaging a robust security culture.
About the Role
Our technologies support some of the most important and impactful work in the world, including our strategic and high-impact customers in the public sector. As a Forward Deployed Security Engineer (FDSecE) you will be responsible for securing these novel applications of OpenAI’s technology. We’re looking for motivated, tenacious, and curious people who will work closely with engineering teams to ensure our infrastructure deployments are highly secure against our adversaries.
As an FDSecE, you will embed directly throughout the lifecycle, working on-site and being hands-on to ensure the overall security of these deployments from design to production and through ongoing operations.
This role is preferred to be based in Washington DC but may consider remote work. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. Travel to and working from customer sites is required for this role.
In this role, you will:
Deeply embed with our most strategic public sector customers to implement and maintain robust security controls.
Be a design and technical thought partner by leveraging security expertise on protective controls including access controls, authentication, encryption, network, and system security.
Collaborate closely with teammates, cross-functional teams, customers, and service providers to achieve security and compliance goals.
Ensure continuity of critical security and monitoring controls through routine security assessments, threat monitoring, and security validation exercises.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
An active US security clearance.
5+ years of security engineering experience, with an emphasis on infrastructure security, application security, network security, datacenter security, and systems engineering.
Familiarity with deployment models, including to cloud platforms (Azure, AWS) and the underlying infrastructure primitives (Kubernetes, Terraform)
Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Golang, or similar.
A proven track record of developing high-quality, scalable, and secure infrastructure.
Experience with security operations including insider threat monitoring, network/endpoint detection and response, or red team or penetration testing operations.
Comprehensive knowledge of modern adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures.
The ability to work collaboratively and effectively in a cross-functional team environment.
Thrive in dynamic environments and can navigate ambiguity with ease.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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